Julie is a doctoral candidate in English and Cultural, Social, and Political Thought at the University of Victoria. Their research focuses on the material cultures of hormones and is situated at the intersection of critical digital theory and feminist and queer science and technology studies. They are a settler scholar currently located on Coast Salish (lək̓ʷəŋən) territory.
Authors | Julie Funk
Articles on Amodern by Julie Funk
SHE RIPPLES HAPPILY
Coding Hormone Care in Porpentine Charity Heartscape’s With Those We Love Alive
While hormones are commonly referred to as “chemical messengers,” this article extends this understanding of hormones as communicative agents to variables in computer code. I situate my reading of hormone variables through Porpentine Charity Heartscape’s interactive fiction, With Those We Love Alive (2014). Through what micha cárdenas calls algorithmic analysis, I examine how the variable status of Porpentine’s encoded hormones affects the both player and the playable character within the online narrative’s authoritarian context. Though the encoded hormones are capable of reproducing a disciplined transgender body, a slimy, oozing easter egg is there to recuperate trans care and community as an outcome of the informatic networks through which hormones flow.